It’s time for two fighters to step into the ring together for the first time. But this is no ordinary boxing match, no tired tale of the tape involving two overweight, washed-up has-beens seeking to score one last payday before retirement.

This is Muhammad Ali versus Mike Tyson, widely considered to be the sport’s dream match-up. And they are going toe-to-toe in a ring in New York this month. And, contrary to the hands of history and the ticking of the clock, they are both in their prime. Well, kind of.

Ali and Tyson are facing off in a ring, but they are played by actors in a new stage show that combines boxing with dance and new media.

The production, ‘Tyson vs. Ali’ (one wonders what Ali would think of being second on the bill), is playing this month as part of the COIL Festival at the 3LD Art & Technology Center in New York. Those behind the show say it ‘realises the greatest heavyweight boxing match that never happened’.

Of course, in reality, Ali’s golden era stretched from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. By the time Iron Mike arrived on the professional scene, Ali had – belatedly – retired from the ring. But this hasn’t stopped boxing pundits, sports fans and just about every man to ever enter a pub from pondering who would have been victorious had the two men every fought in their prime.

Such a fight is an impossibility, but the Tyson vs. Ali show makes the bout in our minds happen on a stage. Although in this case, the stage is a ring, two sides of which are surrounded by audience members. Inside the ropes, four different actors portray Tyson and Ali and some of their opponents. While the performers spar in the ring, nearby video screens broadcast footage of the real-life figures.

The play is 60 minutes long and is structured like a boxing match. The show is divided into three-minute rounds, each with a theme to explore the two fighters, such as ‘beauty and brutality’ and ‘the mindset’. After each round, there is an ‘interval’ in which the actors give voice to some of the words spoken by Ali and Tyson during their careers.

The actors spent two months in a boxing gym learning to move like Tyson and Ali and another month of vocal coaching to imitate their mannerisms and speech patterns. The show is directed by Reid Farrington, written by Frank Boudreaux and choreographed by Laura K. Nicoll.

‘I’ve always been a fan of boxing,’ said Farrington. ‘I met Jake LaMotta [former World Middleweight champion] when I was about eight years old. My father would bring me to Fight Nights in New York City when I was a kid. I also remember going to the Holiday Inn in my neighbourhood in New Jersey to watch the pay-per-view Tyson fights.’

His father was at Madison Square Garden in 1971 to see the first of the three fights between Ali and Joe Frazier, dubbed The Fight of the Century.

‘He always goes on about Ali’s shoes and shoelaces,’ said Farrington. ‘How his laces had these puff ball tassels and how during the whole fight he watched these tassels bounce around like they had a life of their own, until Frazier knocked Ali down, and then the tassels went still for a brief minute. He says it was totally stunning to see those tassels go still.’

Tyson vs. Ali opens by showing some of the knockouts both men inflicted on their opponents. ‘This is where we begin our comparison of these two men’s lives: in the ring,’ said Farrington.

‘We began to think of themes to riff on. Great speeches by these fighters always seemed to fit one of our themes, and in some cases, made the theme.’

‘Ali’, right, gets vocal in between rounds (Picture: Paula Court)

Nicoll said her background in classical ballet helped her choreograph the show’s movements. ‘The parallels between boxing and dance actually make that piece of it one of the easier parts of the process,’ she said.

‘We’re dealing with the reality of putting guys in a ring and asking them to hit each other while responding to these larger than life figures with the script that Frank has written. There’s a constant dialogue about what the round feels like and where are we on the spectrum of safety and realness.’

The careers of the two fighters came to an end for different reasons. Ali had spent too long in the ring and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1984. Tyson was forced into retirement in the early ‘90s when he was convicted of the rape of 18-year-old Desiree Washington, spending three years in prison. But he remained boxing’s biggest draw upon his release, although his subsequent comeback is chiefly remembered for him biting off Evander Holyfield’s ear and losing to Lennox Lewis.

In his prime in the late ‘80s, however, Tyson was a more fearsome prospect, a ferocious puncher. But could he have coped with the dancing of the self-proclaimed – and most boxing pundits’ – ‘greatest’, Ali?

In Tyson vs. Ali, the question is briefly answered – albeit ambiguously and not definitively – as the pair face off in a bout based loosely on the choreography of the Rumble in the Jungle, the 1974 fight between Ali and George Foreman. If you know your boxing history, you may be able to predict the fleeting outcome. Like any boxing match, the rest is up to the judges. Except, in this case, the judges are sitting in the audience.